‘Farm stays sit at the centre of a whole cluster of things we’re all craving at the moment,’ explains Molly Cooper, cofounder of travel booking platform Curated Spaces. ‘There’s an undeniable pushback going on against fast, screen-led modern life, a hunger for local and seasonal food, and a desire to feel the rhythm of the natural world again.’
The global agrotourism market is set to grow by £25 billion by 2030 and, although we might assume it’s driven by nostalgia, Gen Z and Millennials made up 61% of outdoor and experience-led travellers in 2024. It seems, we’re all feeling frazzled and getting sentimental about living a simpler life.
‘The definition of luxury has also changed significantly over recent years,’ Cooper continues. ‘It used to be caviar and marble bathrooms. Now, for a lot of people, true luxury is spending time in nature – waking up to birdsong instead of notifications, eating something grown a few feet from your plate. That’s a profound shift, and farm stays are where it’s most beautifully expressed. I think it will be one of the defining travel trends of the next few years.’
The term ‘frictionmaxxing’ has been trending recently, referring to a widespread revolt against trying to make our lives more efficient in every way – revelling in the joy of picking your own eggs rather than getting them delivered, for example. Think of it as taking the scenic route for as many of life’s daily chores as you can.
‘Covid was a real turning point. It pulled a lot of us out of cities and reminded us how much we needed green space,’ says Cooper. ‘Many people have since moved back to urban life, but that hunger for nature never quite left. Farm stays scratch that itch without asking you to give up your city conveniences.’
The food – it’s all about the 'farm to fork' experience
‘There’s a deep desire for connection – to nature, to the seasons and to provenance,’ explains Cooper. ‘Knowing exactly where your food and your experience come from. And there’s a growing cultural conversation around regenerative farming and using land responsibly, which has made farms feel relevant and forward-looking rather than out of touch.’
With growing concern around ultra-processed foods, people are looking to eat at restaurants that source locally. And it doesn’t get more local than picking eggs for breakfast in the morning, still warm from the hen.
‘You can’t ignore the Clarkson’s Farm effect,’ Cooper tells me. ‘It's genuinely changed how the public sees British farming. Waitrose reported sales of British-grown produce spiking after the latest series, with some lines up nearly 200% year-on-year. When a show like that makes farming feel human, funny and aspirational, people naturally want to experience it for themselves.’
‘The simple pleasures of farm stays booked through our platform come up again and again in reviews – collecting eggs, foraging, meeting the animal,’ Cooper explains. ‘These small, hands-on moments are almost always the things guests single out as the highlight of their trip.’
The feeling – people want to experience a stay on a working farm
‘Good design matters just as much as the food,’ Cooper claims. ‘The places doing this best, like The Newt, pair that earthy, hands-in-the-soil authenticity with genuinely beautiful interiors and exceptional food. It’s not one or the other. People want the egg-collecting and the extraordinary dinner made from what’s grown on site.’
‘More than almost any other kind of stay, you’re rooted in a real place and a real community,’ says Cooper. ‘These are working farmers putting real food on real plates. You meet the shepherd, the gardener, the chef – a whole village of people whose lives are tied to that land. That’s something you can’t manufacture.
‘There’s also a “groundedness” to it,’ she explains. ‘You eat things that came out of the soil, you have a cup of tea looking at cows – it’s all wonderfully unpretentious and works just as well for a young family as it does for a couple escaping the city.’
So, which are the farm stays where the grass is genuinely greener? Rather than just picking hotels that simply adhere to a countryside aesthetic (sorry, Soho Farmhouse), the places listed below are all doing something different, on genuine working farms.
The best farm hotels in the world
The wine-lover’s farm stay
São Lourenço Do Barrocal, Alentejo, Portugal
Just a two-hour drive from Lisbon, amid rolling hills, medieval villages and ancient olive groves, this picturesque Portuguese farmhouse hums with a different kind of activity. Home to a thriving bee colony, guests can try their hand at beekeeping year-round, learning the intricacies of honey production from resident expert Fabio. The hotel itself is a masterclass in rural regeneration: architect Eduardo Souto de Moura agreed to transform the property only on the condition that nothing new would be built, so former dog kennels, chicken coops and grain stores were repurposed into elegant guest accommodation. Surrounded by whitewashed walls, terracotta roofs and climbing vines, the farm feels inseparable from the landscape that sustains it.
You’ll get to try hands-on olive harvesting and witness the oil production process from groves that include trees that are over 1,000 years old. And the estate's vineyards – tended by the same family for eight generations – invite guests to create their own wine blends. As with the honey and olive oil, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to sample the fruits of your labour (we sipped ours excitedly with our dinner on our final night).
Sustainability extends beyond the farm’s produce: pottery used on-site is sourced from nearby artisan towns, fresh bread arrives daily from a neighbouring village, and a deep commitment to supporting the local community runs through every aspect of the experience. Between visits to the hives, vineyards and olive groves, guests can unwind at the spa, stables or natural pool before ending the day beneath some of Portugal’s clearest star-filled skies. And with 275 sun-kissed days a year, it’s a failsafe place to plonk yourself year-round.
The full-board UK farm stay
Fowlescombe Farm, Devon
‘Guess how many servings we can get out of one cow if we eat it nose to tail,’ the hotel manager of Fowlescombe challenges me as we’re driving from the station. I make a few accidentally low ball guesses before I give up. ‘A thousand!’ He exclaims. They’re serious about not wasting anything here. The hotel doesn’t rely on any fossil fuel to run, the underground heating comes from ground heat. The farm’s been organic for over 20 years before it was transformed into somewhere guests could stay, and they alternate whether they have sheep or cows in certain fields because it seems they’re serious about regenerating the land, too. ‘We call them a “flerd” when both species hang out together. You can write that down,’ he laughs. Wool from the sheep is sent to a company in Exeter that uses it to make homewares – but only when there’s any leftover from making the impossibly fluffy slippers in each guest bedroom.
In an effort to take the stress of decision-making, the food is full-board and ample is served at breakfast and lunch, with an obligatory afternoon cake and a four-course dinner – the contents of which are decided a mere few hours before it’s served, depending on what’s abundant on the land that day. It spans 450 acres, is family-run and has recently opened a lovely outdoor sauna. This is a hotel where teaching guests about the importance of preserving the land is integral to the ethos of the place. You can pick your own eggs for breakfast, forage for berries to add to your desert and visit the animals with the estate’s infectiously enthusiastic farmer, Rosie Ball. If you’re saving your visit until next year, try to get a room in the spring for a chance to befriend the baby animals, too.
The wellness farm stay
Sterrekopje Healing Farm, South Africa
Rather than following a rigid wellness programme, the founders want a stay at Sterrekopje to unfold according to your own instinct. Set on a regenerative working farm in South Africa’s Franschhoek Valley, the retreat encourages guests to get out of their head and sink back into their bodies, with each day shaped by whatever feels most nourishing in the moment. That could mean joining the chefs for the morning harvest, baking bread, painting in the atelier or getting your hands into the soil in the gardens; equally, it might be spending the afternoon in the bath house, taking naps, hiking through the landscape or simply lingering over homegrown meals.
‘Everything we offer is always a playful invitation,’ explains co-founder Fleur Huijskens. ‘It’s abundant in its simplicity and generous in ancestral luxury.’ The hope, she says, is that guests leave not only feeling restored, but with a deeper understanding of their own rhythms and rituals. That knowledge about which activities are truly regenerative and restful to them – be it unwinding in the bath house or getting creative in the atelier – is something they can carry into everyday life.
That philosophy extends to the farm itself, where guests are encouraged to become participants rather than spectators. Huijskens believes hospitality has drifted away from its original meaning as ‘a reciprocal relationship’ into something overly transactional, whereas Sterrekopje is built around connection: to nature, community, the land and one another. Instead of simply observing where ingredients come from or how food is grown, visitors are invited to harvest vegetables, care for animals and work with clay, discovering the restorative power of making something with their hands.
‘The reason we say this is ancestral luxury,’ says Huijskens. ‘Is because you’ll be deeply connected to the moment, to the land, to yourself, to the food, to the place’s history.’ In an age where many of us spend our lives disconnected from the natural world, she believes the desire to participate, rather than simply consume, has become ‘greater than ever before’.
The ultra-luxury farm stay
The Newt, Somerset
‘Where do you hide the speakers?’ a guest innocently asked one of The Newt’s turndown staff one morning. ‘The ones that play all the birdsong?’ Gelf Anderson – Head of Food at the hotel – tells me, throwing his head back with laughter as he tells the tale.
‘The majority of meat we eat is from animals reared on site, and beyond those we consciously breed there are thriving ecosystems across the 300-acre farm thanks to our extensive wildlife corridors,’ he explains. Hence the volume of birdsong. This hotel, after all, got its name from a colony of 2,000 protected newts who scuppered original building timelines back in 2013. Since then, newt numbers have increased by 25% here, despite them being an endangered species.
But getting a room at this regenerative West Country hotel is akin to securing tickets to its equally celeb-studded neighbouring festival, Glastonbury – you better be refreshing your tabs months in advance if you want a weekend slot, and you’ve got to be willing to part with some serious cash to spend time here.
But their dedication to design details and commitment to delicious food stands out. ‘Even if it has a function, it’s done with style here.’ Anderson says. The tabletop in the event cellar is made from a felled tree from the estate. The Butchery – where you can do workshops and watch the butchers carve joints for the shop – uses a room decorated with pink tiles of Himalayan rock salt to dry out the meat.
‘We know how damaging mass-produced food can be for us, and we’re also concerned about the welfare of animals farmed on a huge scale,’ says Anderson. Being on the farm reminds people that animals can live happy lives. The farmers are also proud of what they do and love to show it off.’
In the Garden Café, I’m encouraged to order meat as a side dish, with seasonal vegetables taking centre stage. This de-centring of the meat is a refreshing concept, reminding me that veg can be exciting, flavourful and filling, and locally sourced meat should be an occasional tasty addition.
Besides brilliant fresh food offerings, The Newt is known for its cider. ‘We have 17,000 apple trees in the orchards,’ explains Anderson. ‘Our cyder is spelt like that because it’s classified as fine cider, essentially meaning we have a more refined filtration system. We don’t add sugar back in at the end like other brands, so what you’re sipping is 100% fresh-pressed juice that’s naturally fermented.’
The design-lover’s farm stay
Sibbjäns, Gotland, Sweden
Set on Gotland, Sweden’s sun-drenched island in the Baltic Sea, Sibbjäns is reimagining the traditional farm stay through a distinctly Scandinavian lens. Opening for its first full season, the design-led retreat occupies a restored 19th-century horse farm where regenerative agriculture, thoughtful architecture and slow living are woven together. Unusually, the project was conceived not by hoteliers but by two families and lifelong friends, whose shared vision still shapes the guest experience. ‘Sibbjäns began as a shared dream between our two families,’ say co-owners Kina Nordlander Zeidler and Susanna Rönn.
‘That personal sense of friendship, trust and collaboration continues to shape everything we do.’ The result is Sweden’s only boutique farm hotel, with 22 individually designed rooms spread across the Farmhouse and Bunkhouse, where reclaimed timber, limewashed walls, sheepskin throws, handwoven rugs and contemporary artworks create interiors that feel deeply rooted in Gotland. Every detail is intended to tell the story of the island. ‘We wanted to create a hotel that could only exist here,’ they explain, ‘allowing guests to experience the island's culture, character and natural beauty more intimately.’
That connection to place extends well beyond the bedrooms. The same regenerative principles that shape the working farm underpin Sibbjäns’ wellness philosophy, inspired by Viking traditions of living in rhythm with nature, the seasons and the elements. Guests can practise yoga in a striking barn that reinterprets a traditional Gotlandic threshing building, complete with dry-laid limestone walls and a soaring, nine-metre ag-thatch roof hand-laid by 79-year-old master thatcher Erik Larsson, before unwinding in the wood-fired sauna or natural rainwater pool. Treatment rooms and an outdoor gym is set to follow.
Days might also include horse riding or kitesurfing along Gotland’s wild coastline, reinforcing the owners’ belief that design should do more than look beautiful. ‘For us, design is much more than aesthetics,’ they say. ‘It is how we tell the story of the island, the farm and the people behind it.’ At Sibbjäns, every building, material and experience is designed to foster ‘a genuine connection with the destination’ – a philosophy that makes it feel less like a hotel and more like a luxurious invitation to live in harmony with the landscape, even if just for a few days.
